German Negotiations

Attempts to initiate talks between East and West Germany have always ended in failure, and there is little reason to believe that the most recent effort will have any atypical success. Responding to an appeal from West German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger, Walter Ulbricht, East Germany's Communist party boss, proposed this week that Kiesinger meet with East German premier Willi Stoph to "negotiate an understanding between the two German states."

What Ulbricht presumably had in mind was a discussion about diplomatic recognition for East Germany, but this was certainly not Kiesinger's intention. Reunification is an unchallengeable goal of West German policy, and post-war governments have always assumed that re-unification will be impossible if East Germany establishes an accepted international identity.

They have insisted, therefore, on treating the East German regime as a pariah and its leaders as outlaws. They still refuse to speak of "the German Democratic Republic," and refer only to "East Germany" or the "Soviet zone." In 1953 the Eastern city of Chemnitz was renamed Karl Marx Stadt, yet this change is still not acknowledged in the West. The West Germans have made use of television broadcasts which can be received in the East to propagandize against the Communist government.

Embittered by this contemptuous treatment, and under pressure from their Russian allies, who fear a revival of German power, the leaders of East Germany are in no hurry to be reunited with the West. Their economic recovery after the war, while not quite as miraculous as West Germany's, has been extraordinarily rapid. Before the war the eastern states of Germany were primarily agricultural with some light industry. Now the world's eighth most industralized country. East Germany has huge steel and petro-chemical installations, and is Russia's most important trading partner. Its citizens have the highest standard of living in the Communist world.

Yet East Germany does not exist except in the eyes of a few Communist countries. Repeatedly the East Germans have urged a detente in Europe which would enable them to establish diplomatic ties with the NATO powers. But as long as the West Germans refuse to tolerate relations between any of their allies and the East Germans, very few countries -- and none of the major Western powers -- will recognize East Germany.

The West Germans insist that East Germany must not be recognized, in part because they want to keep alive the image of a single and indivisible Germany, and in part because they feel morally indignant about the character of the East German regime. Above all, it is the Berlin wall and the death of those who attempt to cross it that outrages the West Germans.

Bu this indignation is misdirected. Until the wall, was erected millions of people, carrying with them money, and technical know-how, deserted their country. And many of these people were consciously lured away by the West Germans. In an open letter to the Social Democratic Party of West Germany in February 1966, Walter Ulbricht wrote: "We have not forgotten, and shall not forget, how, supported and guided by the government of the West German Federal Republic, systematic attempts were made to disorganize the health system of the [GDR German Democratic Republic] by enticing medical specialists. This disruptive activity was systematically concentrated on individual towns and boroughs and great damage was suffered. In the end it was the GDR citizens requiring medical care who suffered. We survived these attacks on our health system. There are similar examples in many fields."

A West German scientist and former Social Democratic Bundestag member estimated that free access to West Berlin cost East Germany a total of 85 thousand million marks. The East German government believed that it had a legitimate and defensible right to control the emigration of its citizens if that emigration was destroying the economy.

The bitterness between East and West Germany does not drive from the Berlin wall. An open border existed, after all, for 13 years and there was no more harmonious cooperation than now. East and West Germany are components of different international systems and they are committed to different goals. The reunification that West Germany desires cannot be achieved by friendly negotiations any more than East Germany can hope to achieve an international identity by the same technique. But both regimes believe that they can profit politically by talking about friendly negotiations. Neither wants the negotiations. Neither expects that there will be negotiations. And neither will be disappointed.

GERALD M. ROSBERG